UN inspectors flew into Tehran yesterday as the White House
announced that President Obama would meet Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu on 5 March for what could be a key meeting on
deciding the strategy for dealing with Iran´s nuclear
programme.

Iran staged a show of readiness for any putative external attack
yesterday when its military announced the start of a four-day
exercise to underpin protection of its nuclear sites. Tehran also
threatened to extend its partly symbolic oil embargo against Britain
and France to other EU countries.

In the wake of low expectations expressed by some International
Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) diplomats that its inspectors would be
allowed free access to nuclear facilities, the head of the IAEA´s
team, Herman Nackaerts, insisted he wanted "concrete results" from
the latest two-day visit. But he admitted that real progress "may
take a while".

The IAEA is hoping to question Iranian nuclear scientists and visit
the Parchin military base, where high-explosive tests are thought to
have been conducted.

Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran´s Foreign Minister, told ISNA, the country´s
student news agency, that the inspectors would not be inspecting any
nuclear sites.

In a rare Chinese criticism of Iranian policy towards its mounting
dispute with the West, Beijing´s Foreign Ministry spokesman responded
to Iran´s announcement on Sunday that it was halting oil exports to
Britain and France by saying: "We have consistently upheld dialogue
and negotiation as the way to resolve disputes between countries, and
do not approve of exerting pressure or using confrontation to resolve
issues."

The halt to sales of oil to Britain and France was intended as a pre-
emptive retaliation for the boycott of Iranian oil which the EU has
announced will be imposed from July. However, its impact may be
limited since British and French oil purchases from Iran have already
been severely reduced.

Tom Donilon, President Obama´s National Security Adviser, left
Jerusalem yesterday after two days of talks ahead of next month´s
Obama-Netanyahu meeting. He stressed the need for sanctions to be
allowed to work before any issue of a military strike arose to
curtail Iran´s suspected ambition to build a nuclear weapon.

Dan Meridor, Israel´s Deputy Prime Minister, repeatedly emphasised at
a meeting with foreign reporters his view that "there is a chance of
success [for sanctions] if it they are done with determination,
persistence and leadership". But he stressed he had no guarantees
that it would do so and that it was still possible that Israel might
have to "stand alone" against Iran´s nuclear programme.